Mona Simpson

Fourteen-year-old Miles Adler-Rich, helped by his friend Hector, spies and listens in on his separating parents. Both boys are in thrall to Miles's unsuspecting mother, Irene, who is "pretty for a mathematician." They rifle through her dresser drawers and strip-mine her computer diary, finding that all leads pull them straight into her bedroom, and into questions about a stranger from Washington, D.C., who weaves in and out of their lives. Their amateur...

Claire, a composer and a new mother, comes to Los Angeles so that her husband can follow his dream of writing television comedy. With Paul working all hours and Claire left with the baby, William, whom she adores but has no idea how to care for, they hire Lola, a fifty-two-year-old mother of five who works in America to pay for her own children's education back in the Philippines. Lola stabilizes the rocky household, and other parents try to lure...

An unwed mother decides it's time for the father to look after his daughter and sends her to him. The father, a Silicon Valley tycoon with a girlfriend, gives the daughter and the mother a bungalow. The novel traces the daughter's influence on the tycoon.

Adele is a flashy, flirtatious dreamer. Her daughter Ann is a quiet, no-nonsense realist. On the surface, they're like oil and water, but deep down, they are two of a kind.

"Adele is a flashy, flirtatious dreamer. Her daughter Ann is a quiet, no-nonsense realist. On the surface, they're like oil and water, but deep down, they are two of a kind."--Container.